I Made Terrible Games With Google’s AI Playground

本文为原文前 6,000 字符的节选翻译，完整内容请查看原文。

Neon Don is really pissed at his ex-wife’s lawyer. He’ll tell you any chance he gets while he shotguns lines of pixelated bad guys. He’s also not real—his likeness has only existed for a few minutes in a top-down cyberpunk-style shooter game, generated in the Google Labs service Playground. “Keep shooting!” Neon Don says as he mows enemies down. “Brenda took everything else away!”

“霓虹唐”（Neon Don）对他前妻的律师感到非常愤怒。每当他用霰弹枪扫射成排的像素化坏蛋时，他都会抓住机会告诉你这一点。但他并非真实存在——他的形象只是几分钟前在 Google Labs 的 Playground 服务中生成的一款俯视角赛博朋克风格射击游戏里出现的。“继续射击！”霓虹唐在扫射敌人时喊道，“布伦达把剩下的东西都拿走了！”

Playground, which Google launched this week, is part of Google Labs, the company’s landing page for its various AI experiments that haven’t made it into an app or official service quite yet. (Google has done this before with things like music production). It works similarly to Horizon Create, the game generation service Meta announced in September.

本周推出的 Playground 是 Google Labs 的一部分，这是谷歌为其尚未进入应用程序或正式服务阶段的各种人工智能实验设立的着陆页。（谷歌此前在音乐制作等方面也做过类似尝试）。它的工作原理与 Meta 在九月份宣布的游戏生成服务 Horizon Create 类似。

Playground is essentially vibe coding for video games, letting people describe in plain language what kind of game they want to make in a chatbot-like interface. Playground then builds a working in-browser version of a game. You can add further instructions to tweak the design from there. If you have assets you want to use as a reference, you can upload photos, videos, or models. Otherwise, the visuals and designs are all AI-generated.

Playground 本质上是为电子游戏提供的“氛围编程”，让人们可以在类似聊天机器人的界面中，用通俗的语言描述他们想要制作的游戏类型。随后，Playground 会构建一个可在浏览器中运行的游戏版本。你可以在此基础上添加进一步的指令来调整设计。如果你有想要作为参考的素材，可以上传照片、视频或模型。否则，所有的视觉效果和设计都将由人工智能生成。

The process of making a game is very straightforward, conversational, and responsive. That means it is perfect for dummies like me with little to no video game development chops or even decent coding skills. By simply throwing out some ideas, I built three playable, stable, and not even remotely good games in one day.

制作游戏的过程非常简单、直观且响应迅速。这意味着它非常适合像我这样几乎没有电子游戏开发能力，甚至连像样的编程技能都没有的菜鸟。仅仅通过提出一些想法，我在一天之内就制作了三款可玩、稳定但完全称不上优秀的游戏。

Pork Drop: My first work was Pork Drop, a result generated from the prompt “Tetris but with cute pigs instead of blocks.” I typed that in, hit Build. The AI chugged, then spit out a farm-themed version of Tetris with little pig faces drawn on every block.

“猪猪掉落”（Pork Drop）：我的第一部作品是“猪猪掉落”，它是根据提示“俄罗斯方块，但用可爱的猪代替方块”生成的。我输入了这段话，点击了构建。人工智能运行了一会儿，然后吐出了一个农场主题的俄罗斯方块版本，每个方块上都画着小猪的脸。

I had to iterate a bit to realize my vision, telling the AI not just to stick pig faces on the blocks but to have the blocks shaped like distorted pigs. “Each block is a pig,” I wrote, “contorted into the shape of the Tetris blocks. Make ’em look a little squished but still cute!” This resulted in a clean, playable version of Tetris, though the occasional block looked like a T-posed pig with its legs spread-eagle. The AI suggested the title Piggy Stacker, but I thought mine was better. (I’m right.)

为了实现我的构想，我不得不进行了一些迭代，告诉人工智能不要只是把猪脸贴在方块上，而是要让方块本身呈现出扭曲的猪的形状。“每个方块都是一只猪，”我写道，“扭曲成俄罗斯方块的形状。让它们看起来有点被挤压但依然可爱！”这最终产生了一个简洁、可玩的俄罗斯方块版本，尽管偶尔会有方块看起来像是一只四肢张开、呈“T”字型姿势的猪。人工智能建议命名为“小猪堆叠者”（Piggy Stacker），但我认为我的名字更好。（我是对的。）

Dinner Darling: The next game idea came courtesy of my colleague Jay Dayrit, who, when asked what kind of game I should make, immediately requested, “Gay dinner party.” I typed that in. With no follow-up requests, the result was a 2D flash-style game called Dinner Darling. The art looks like everyone is a Bitmoji. You’re placed in the shoes of a very stressed-out-looking host, Julian, who is tasked with hosting a fancy dinner party with fussy guests who can’t seem to sit in their chairs at the table. As timers count down, you have to prepare various artisanal bruschettas and espresso martinis for your increasingly angry guests.

“晚餐宝贝”（Dinner Darling）：下一个游戏创意来自我的同事杰伊·戴里特（Jay Dayrit）。当被问及我应该制作什么样的游戏时，他立刻要求制作一个“同性恋晚宴”。我输入了这个要求。在没有后续指令的情况下，结果生成了一款名为“晚餐宝贝”的 2D Flash 风格游戏。美术风格看起来每个人都像 Bitmoji 表情包。你扮演的是一位看起来压力很大的主人朱利安（Julian），他的任务是举办一场高级晚宴，但挑剔的客人们似乎总是不愿意坐在餐桌椅上。随着计时器倒数，你必须为越来越愤怒的客人们准备各种手工意式烤面包和浓缩咖啡马提尼。

After it generates, I give the game a shot and fail miserably, unable to figure out the controls in time to bring my guests a timely pastry or cocktail. (Sasha, one of the guests, required numerous espresso cocktails in a row.) “PARTY CATASTROPHE,” the game-over screen read. There is no mention of anybody’s sexuality in the game at all, but when I lost, Dayrit called from across the office, “See? You’re bad at the game because you’re straight!” Well played, Playground.

生成后，我试玩了一下，结果惨败，没能及时搞清楚操作来给客人们送上糕点或鸡尾酒。（其中一位客人萨莎连续要了好几杯浓缩咖啡鸡尾酒。）游戏结束画面显示“派对灾难”。游戏中完全没有提到任何人的性取向，但当我输掉游戏时，戴里特在办公室对面喊道：“看吧？你玩得烂是因为你是直男！”干得漂亮，Playground。

My colleague Reece Rogers was less impressed when he looked at the game. “This is very unrealistic, because there’s not a vegan or dairy-free option,” he said.

我的同事里斯·罗杰斯（Reece Rogers）在看这款游戏时印象并不深刻。他说：“这太不现实了，因为里面没有纯素或无乳制品的选项。”

Neon Don: The game that took the most work is the one that has since been played the most by random people on Playground. (Anyone can sign in with their Google account and play these user-generated games.) I’m up to seven unique players as of publication, which apparently means this game is my masterpiece.

“霓虹唐”（Neon Don）：这款花费我最多心血的游戏，也是后来在 Playground 上被随机玩家玩得最多的游戏。（任何人都可以用谷歌账号登录并游玩这些用户生成的内容。）截至发稿时，我已经有了七名独立玩家，这显然意味着这款游戏是我的杰作。

I asked the AI to make a “cyberpunk-style rhythm game” where you play as a “very divorced” grizzled ex-cop who battles waves of rogue agents and corrupt politicians. It started as a Beat Saber–type title, but I asked the AI to make it more like the top-down shooter Hotline Miami. The result was Neon Don (title mine), a top-down, arcade-like shooter with pulsing synth wave background music.

我要求人工智能制作一款“赛博朋克风格的节奏游戏”，玩家扮演一名“离异且沧桑”的前警官，与一波又一波的流氓特工和腐败政客战斗。它最初是一款类似《节奏光剑》（Beat Saber）的游戏，但我要求人工智能把它做得更像俯视角射击游戏《迈阿密热线》（Hotline Miami）。最终成品就是“霓虹唐”（标题是我起的），一款带有脉动合成波背景音乐的俯视角街机风格射击游戏。

Neon Don is also the game I tried to push the content bounds on, to see what Playground would let me get away with. I described the enemies, and Playground AI added its own details on top, including “bulky, wide builds with prominent beer bellies straining against their tight tactical shirts and cargo pants” and “custom tough-guy swagger animations.” OK, Playground, go off.

“霓虹唐”也是我试图挑战内容边界的游戏，我想看看 Playground 会允许我做到什么程度。我描述了敌人，Playground AI 在此基础上添加了自己的细节，包括“魁梧宽大的体型，突出的啤酒肚撑破了紧身的战术衬衫和工装裤”以及“定制的硬汉摇摆动画”。好吧，Playground，你赢了。

The game had several small issues at first. I countered them and added features a little bit at a time. I dictated systems for level scaling, boss generation, and better enemy variety. I flagged mobility issues, like the player getting stuck, and it fixed them. (And occasionally introduced other problems.) I asked it to develop a text-based snark system that made the main character respond to combat with witty in-character quips like “Keep shooting! Brenda took everything else away!” or “I’ve taken worse hits from my ex-wife’s lawyer!”

游戏起初有一些小问题。我逐一应对并一点点添加功能。我设定了关卡缩放、Boss 生成和增强敌人多样性的系统。我指出了移动问题，比如玩家会被卡住，它也修复了。（偶尔还会引入其他问题。）我让它开发了一个基于文本的讽刺系统，让主角在战斗中能用符合角色性格的俏皮话进行回应，比如“继续射击！布伦达把剩下的东西都拿走了！”或者“我从前妻的律师那里受到的打击比这严重多了！”

I imagine that a real game developer would know what to actually say to sharpen features and make the game more fun or playable. Some of the top games people have created on the platform are much better than mine, since I tended to lean on more vibe-based iterative changes like, “Make Don taller” or “more divorced.”

我想真正的游戏开发者会知道如何通过具体的指令来优化功能，让游戏变得更有趣或更具可玩性。平台上一些顶尖的游戏比我的好得多，因为我倾向于依赖基于氛围的迭代修改，比如“让唐更高一点”或者“让他看起来更像离异人士”。

Game Plan: After a certain point, Google throttles your usage of its Playground service. Every new game and iteration therein uses up more of your allowance. (Note for all my new loyal fans: Updates on my titles will be coming on October 14 when my usage allowance refreshes.) That means my games still have many issues. I wanted to add a “Backflip” button to Neon Don, but the AI called it “Doge flip,” which I think sucks but cannot change until my usage.

游戏计划：在达到一定程度后，谷歌会限制你对 Playground 服务的使用。每一个新游戏及其迭代都会消耗更多的配额。（给所有新粉丝的提示：我的游戏更新将在 10 月 14 日我的使用配额刷新时发布。）这意味着我的游戏仍然存在许多问题。我想给“霓虹唐”添加一个“后空翻”按钮，但人工智能把它命名为“狗狗翻”（Doge flip），我觉得这很烂，但在配额刷新前我无法更改。